GLAAD - Musicalshttp://www.glaad.org/tags/musicals
enGuest post: Cinderella and her wife: how a fairytale became a reality in just 30 years http://www.glaad.org/blog/guest-post-cinderella-and-her-wife-how-fairytale-became-reality-just-30-years
<div class="field field-name-field-blog-featured field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span id="styles-0-0" class="styles file-styles 750px"> <img src="http://www.glaad.org/sites/default/files/styles/750px/public/hollynancy.PNG?itok=p4P4-7C6" alt="" title="" /></span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><em>Cheryl Moch is a Brooklyn-based writer and playwright, as well as a social worker involved with the aging. </em>Cinderella: The Real True Story<em> is now being readied for its next incarnation as a musical theater piece by composer/lyricist Holly Gewandter. Moch thinks that anyone who sees the play will “all agree unanimously and sing it to the rafters, that lovers all deserve to have their happily ever afters.” Moch's daughter, Hannah, is currently the National News Intern at GLAAD</em></p>
<p><em>This article was first published in the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cheryl-moch/cinderella-and-her-wife_b_3564018.html">Huffington Post Gay Voices Blog</a>.</em></p>
<p>In 1985, when our play <em>Cinderella: The Real True Story</em> was first performed at the Wow Café in New York, marriage equality was a dream -- and a punch line. I laughed along with everyone else when I first heard the line, written by my friend and collaborator Holly Gewandter, "We'll live as wife and wife."</p>
<p>"Ridiculous!" we all thought back then.</p>
<p>The play, perhaps the very first onstage depiction of same-sex marriage, presented the dream of marriage equality through the classic tale of Cinderella. In our pioneering, gender-bending version, Cinderella goes to the ball disguised as a boy. The princess is an archetypal spoiled brat, the only child of a doting father, the absolute monarch King Phillip the Bold (brilliantly played in the Wow production by the fabulous Lisa Kron in her first role on a New York stage, and in the first London production by the fabulous Gillian Hanna), and she is feeling hopeless about ever finding her "prince." She and our cross-dressing Cinderella meet at the ball, and the magic of love at first sight is so powerful that the princess doesn't care when it's later revealed that he's a she. "I want this woman," she wails to her father, petulantly stamping her feet.</p>
<p>Head over heels in love, the princess proposes to Cinderella, who accepts. Expecting her always-indulgent dad to share her joy, the princess is furious when the distraught king expresses outrage and calls the relationship between the princess and Cinderella unnatural. When the princess insists that what she feels could not be more natural, the king counters with, "But it's the law," to which the princess replies, "Then change the law, Daddy ... change it for my happiness."</p>
<p>The clever duke (himself in the closet) is the king's chief advisor, and he helps the king craft a plan to send Cinderella out on a quest to win the hand of the princess as suitors did in days of yore, when "men were men." They're sure that Cinderella, a mere girl, will run away -- or perish.</p>
<p>But of course Cinderella, having a hero's heart and soul (and a secret weapon in her fairy godmother), triumphs, and the king finally sanctions the union and, as Gewandter's wonderful lyric in the finale puts it:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>You all thought Cinderella would end up with a fella;<br /> The sound of wedding bells would ring the curtain down.<br /> Tradition not withstanding, horizons need expanding,<br /> And so I am commanding all subjects of the crown to<br /> Make a wish and close their eyes and sing it to the rafters<br /> That lovers all deserve to have their happily ever afters....</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Audiences throughout the world have laughed and cheered and cried through the play. The "other side" felt that the notion was so dangerous that Conservative members of Parliament threatened to close down the first London production, calling it "twisted and perverse"; we were, after all, profaning a beloved fairytale, and in a government-subsidized theater to boot! The tabloids had a field day with the controversy, which resulted, of course, in sold-out performances for the entire run.</p>
<p>Maybe we won't all live happily ever after, but now all of us will live with a dignity and respect -- and equal protection under the law -- that back in 1985 we could only sit in a dark theater and fantasize about. And in this happy summer for the LGBT community, we have had our happily-ever-afters sanctioned by the highest court of the land. So make a wish and close your eyes -- and let's make sure this happy dream spreads from sea to shining sea. It's the stuff of fairy tales.<span style="display: none;"> </span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pubdate field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single">July 12, 2013</span></div></div></div>
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<div class="field-label">Issues:&nbsp;</div>
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<li class="field-item even"><a href="/issues/entertainment">Entertainment</a>, </li>
<li class="field-item odd"><a href="/issues/local-and-regional-news">Local and Regional News</a>, </li>
<li class="field-item even"><a href="/issues/family">Family</a></li>
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<div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix clearfix">
<div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div>
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<li class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/cinderella-real-true-story">Cinderella The Real True Story</a>, </li>
<li class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/cheryl-moch">Cheryl Moch</a>, </li>
<li class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/holly-gewandter">Holly Gewandter</a>, </li>
<li class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/marriage-equality">Marriage Equality</a>, </li>
<li class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/theater">theater</a>, </li>
<li class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/musicals">Musicals</a>, </li>
<li class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/huffington-post-gay-voices">Huffington Post Gay Voices</a></li>
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Fri, 12 Jul 2013 16:49:37 +0000hannahmoch66954 at http://www.glaad.orghttp://www.glaad.org/blog/guest-post-cinderella-and-her-wife-how-fairytale-became-reality-just-30-years#commentsGeorge Takei to Star in World Premiere of Allegiance- A New American Musicalhttp://www.glaad.org/blog/george-takei-star-world-premiere-allegiance-new-american-musical
<div class="field field-name-field-blog-featured field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span id="styles-1-0" class="styles file-styles 750px"> <img id="1" src="http://www.glaad.org/sites/default/files/styles/750px/public/George%20Takei%20Main%20Pic.jpg?itok=ATiWqtYi" alt="" title="" /></span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Openly gay actor George Takei will <a href="http://www.allegiancemusical.com/">take to the stage</a> on Friday, September 7 for the world premiere of <em>Allegiance- A New American Musical </em>at the Old Globe in San Diego.</p>
<p><img class="media-image" id="3" style="margin: 3px; float: left;;;;;" src="http://www.glaad.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/Allegiance%20pic.jpg?itok=KNu5NK7_" alt="" /><em>Allegiance</em> is an “<a href="http://www.theoldglobe.org/information/press/2011/release_Allegiance_team.aspx">epic story of love</a>, war and heroism set during the Japanese American internment of World War II.” The narrative follows a family that is displaced from their home in California after the attack on Pearl Harbor and confined in the Heart Mountain internment camp in the wastelands of Wyoming, unsure if they will ever be able to return. The play was written by Jay Kuo and Lorenzo Thione. Shedding light on this difficult time for America, the performance coincides with the 70<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the implementation of the internment camps.</p>
<p>Kuo and Thione developed the idea for the play after two coincidental run-ins with George Takei at a couple of shows in New York City. It was during the intermission of their second encounter at the Broadway show, <em>In the Heights</em>, that Takei shared with them his personal story of how his family was placed in the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas during the war.</p>
<p><img class="media-image" id="3" style="float: right; margin: 3px;;;;;;" src="http://www.glaad.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/Takei%20Tyrrell%20parade_0.jpeg?itok=6vUcSit8" alt="" />Takei already has a great track record of using his projects and celebrity to advocate on behalf of human rights. Recently, Takei <a href="http://www.glaad.org/blog/george-takei-take-stand-against-scouts-anti-gay-ban-glaad-jennifer-tyrrell-nyc-pride">marched at NYC Pride</a> with GLAAD and Ohio mom Jennifer Tyrrell, who was ousted as leader of her son's Boy Scouts troop earlier this year because she is gay. Tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/GeorgeTakei">@GeorgeTakei</a> to wish him well for the show and click <a href="http://www.theoldglobe.org/tickets/production.aspx?PID=9747&amp;emailsource=4065&amp;utm_source=Allegiance&amp;utm_medium=promo_family&amp;utm_campaign=early_onsale" target="_blank">here</a> to get your tickets.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pubdate field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single">August 28, 2012</span></div></div></div>
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<li class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/george-takei">George Takei</a>, </li>
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Tue, 28 Aug 2012 23:12:17 +0000rickycarter59258 at http://www.glaad.orghttp://www.glaad.org/blog/george-takei-star-world-premiere-allegiance-new-american-musical#comments